Understanding CMI guitars and amps

duncandisorderly · Joined: 22 Nov 2006 Posts: 2

new here, bit of a bass collection going on (27 & counting) but the one I never knew much about & which I would scramble to rescue at the expense of all those ricks & fenders is..... a yamato.
so have I come to the right place for info?
actually, to be totally accurate, it's a yamato neck now. I discarded the jazz body because it was too insubstantial & I had feedback problems. the neck is now on a precision-ish body of early 80s origin- probably an ibanez, because fender scratchplates won't fit it.
the original yamato was a jazz replica. maple board, black block markers. cheap nasty tuners (I have seen the exact same thing earlier in this thread on a CMI), which I swapped out for mini schallers (& so two of them go the wrong way!). the neck is incredible- smooth, fast, comfortable.
but I was never able to find out where it came from. I bought the jazzer 2nd hand in early 1983, told at the time that it had been someone's spare.
I have the recent fender version of the same thing (a geddy, in fact) & it's just not the same. feels cheap, insubstantial, flakey.... & another fender jazz neck with pearl blocks is better, but if it gets a knock the blocks start to lift out.
so who were yamato? what's the CMI connection? & is there any connection with FGG or tokai?

duncan.

1bassleft · Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 7:47 am Post subject:

Hello Duncan and welcome. As a fellow Bassman, you're also particularly welcome in our Bass Cat, too. This is as good a place, probably only, for Yamato info. I own one and, the reason it cropped up in this thread, is the great similarity they have to early cMi basses that I'm now fairly sure were imported by Marshall.

Yamatos and Mayas were definitely made in Japan (incidentally, both brands share names with Japanese WWII warships) and tended to have unbelieveably horrible hardware, particularly the pups, tuners and bridge. Hang on, the knurled-metal knobs are awful, too. A Japanese factory must have been turning these out along with the cMi guitars and I very much doubt that it was Fuji-Gen Gakki or Nippon Gakki. My Yamato is vaguely Precision styled, with a body of odd-looking wood (also considerably thinner than stock Fender) and a copy of a Telecaster pickup. As you can imagine, it sounds nothing like a Precision.

The reason why I still have it is because the neck is fantastic. It doesn't have the block markers (I wish it did) but it is a beauty of rock maple, maple fingerboard and dot markers (Precision nut width, which I prefer) and that lovely vintage gloss finish that's out of fashion now (I never find it as slow as people make out) but looks fantastic. Like you, I plan to put it together with a body, hardware and electronics that will do it justice. I have some Schaller M4 minikeys (in black) that should fit but I'd prefer to keep a more vintage look. I seem to remember Schaller also do keys with thin posts that'll fit, but with larger machineheads.

If you can post up a pic of your bass, I'd be interested.

1bassleft · Posted: Mon Nov 27, 2006 1:54 am Post subject:

Of all people, I'm having some problems with uploading pictures at the moment. For now, I'll just leave it at saying that CMI on the Fleeb (that's ebay.com and ebay.co.uk) have items worth a look at. Just search "CMI" in guitars and you'll see them. Click on "completed listings" too. I'll try and sort pictures in the meantime...

duncandisorderly · Joined: 22 Nov 2006 Posts: 2

well, I had a feeling I'd finally arrived at the right place. thank you for the kind welcome. I should warn you- I have around 28 basses now, 8 guitars & about 30 keyboards of one sort or another. fender, rickenbacker, ibanez, moog, mellotron.... you get the picture. GAS gone mad, but I am also a working musician- 2nd career anyway.

I wrote recently to a "guitar guru" (see what I did there?) from whom I'd bought a couple of tokai strats, to see if he knew anything about yamato. he didn't mention the battleship, though I already knew about that... Smile

but he did venture that the japanese manufacturers of the late 70s were given to experimenting with branding to the degree that if someone wanted a guitar range with their pet dog's name on it as a "brand", it would likely happen.
anyway.
my yamato was a respectable but skinny white jazz replica with reasonable pickups & hardware, except for the tuners. I changed these for schallers, but andy's (of denmark street) only had the 2+2 sets, so two of them go backwards. it's been like that since 1983, & I'm sort of used to it now. sometime in 1984, I decided that the thing was too skinny (feedback problems), & (on student money at the time) I acquired a no-name precisionish japanese instrument with a rubbish neck. this thing was in a rather fetching sparkly salmon pink.
so the yamato neck, with it's excellent finish & black blocks, was fastened to this hideous pink body with a small gap between the end of the neck & the end of the neck pocket.
but for some modification to the scratchplate (to show off more of the pink), the addition of a 1/4 pounder (to make it louder) & a bass-cut switch, this is how my favourite bass is to this day. & it is my favourite despite competition from a 1974 4001 & a bunch of other desirables.
I will post a pic when I've got one that does it justice & when I figure out how. again, many thanks.

duncan.

greglock · Joined: 27 Nov 2006 Posts: 2 Location: Nottingham

Delighted to report another Nottingham cmi - a Les Paul bought from new around 30 years ago. I've taken some quick pics and hope they can be seen OK.

I'll post some more info soon, but have found this forum a great read

greglock · Joined: 27 Nov 2006 Posts: 2 Location: Nottingham

Oops! Pasted in the thumbnail urls instead of the main pics! Let's try again.

I'm pretty sure I bought it around '76 - I remember it being about £105-110 - quite a lot of dosh then.
Microsark - it was the music shop on Market Street around where Selectadisc/SuperFi are now, can you remember its name? I think Clement pianos was at the bottom of Derby Rd.
It's in good condition and has a lovely neck and action. I've had a couple of breaks from playing, and also have a couple of other guitars, so it's not been overused.
I've just had it set up again and the frets polished by Callum at Zebra Muzik in Ilkeston, and he's done a lovely job. Just the switch needed replacing. Other than that it's as new. I'll definitely play it more often now, and it's been great to find out a bit more about it.

MicroSark · Groupie Joined: 27 Jul 2006 Posts: 40 Location: Nottingham

I think the guitar shop was Jack Brentnalls.

I think I might have actually played that particular guitar while it was for sale in that shop - I played just about everything else they had in there at the time.

My CMI 12 string was from Clements.

Good to hear from another Nottinghamian!

1bassleft · Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 3:31 am Post subject:

Sarky, there is another CMI 12-string on ebay UK right now - very much like yours. Keep a watch on it while I try and organize its pictures up to here. The only thing about it is that the neck looks like beech and I'm not keen on the lacquer in some shots - I don't know if it's bad photography or some DIY refinish.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/12-String-Jumbo-Acoustic-Vintage-CMI-1970s-Guitar_W0QQitemZ280054247019QQihZ018QQcategoryZ141186QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Greg, great to see you in here and thanks for your kind comments - it's a bit of a love-labour for me, having spent fruitless ages trying to find info on all the CMI story. 1976 was when Marshall started producing CMI amps and - I suspect - when that logo appeared. I'm now thinking that the "cMi" logo pre-dates the introduction of the amps. Whereas many cMi types are a bit crude and not very close copies, there is a Strat on ebay UK with a cMi logo that is pretty smart. I think this is one from the change of factory (or at least a change of specification) but just prior to the 1976 logo.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1970s-CMI-Marshall-Stratocaster-Electric-Guitar-Japan_W0QQitemZ260056937592QQihZ016QQcategoryZ2384QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Duncan, we love GAS-sufferers here at G-site. Up at the top, near this thread, you'll see a sticky of mine "how to post pics on Guitarsite". Please do get the camera pointing at your basses and put them into the bass category - new topic very welcome. The general guitar cat will welcome pics of the six-stringers, too. What the heck, put some keyboards into "Accident and Emargency" just to complete the set Smile

Other CMI on the Fleeb. A Marshall-CMI LPS failed to make it's £150 BIN:

A US-market CMI bass, even allowing for malfunctioning P-pup and "so-what" 90s Korean looks, sold for an incredibly low $25:

And a tale of two pedals. This Maestro Fuzztone is from Illinois and US-CMI, selling for just under $165. It's obviously similar to the footswitch on myfoot's Standel CMI amp from ca page 4 of this thread:

while this Marshall-CMI phaser sold for a very reasonable £26. Note that this ped was made in Japan, despite Bletchley's undoubted ability to knock up one itself if they'd've been inclined:

MicroSark · Groupie Joined: 27 Jul 2006 Posts: 40 Location: Nottingham

It will be interesting to see what that 12 string goes for. Mine is (I think, but I'm biased) in better condition overall. That one looks as if its suffered some unfortunate fading, unless thats just the lighting. Thanks for the heads-up.

I'm in a 'not selling it' mood at the moment as I made the mistake of picking the damn thing up and playing it again <sigh>. I'll just have to buy a bigger house.

MicroSark · Groupie Joined: 27 Jul 2006 Posts: 40 Location: Nottingham

It went for 205 GBP.

Still undecided about selling mine, unless someone knows of a good deal on a bouzouki/mandola (electro/acoustic preferably).

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